


prick your finger on a spindle

by Ro29



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ahsoka Tano Needs a Hug, CT-6116 | Kix is a Good Bro, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Light Angst, Medical Inaccuracies, Poisoning, Rex is fine!!! I promise!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:26:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27389437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ro29/pseuds/Ro29
Summary: It starts out slow, little, nothing to worry about as they make the trek across the planet.Little things, tiny things that he brushes off as inconsequential and nothing to worry about.He doesn’t notice the shaking though, not until he stumbles and Commander Tano catches him.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, CT-6116 | Kix & Ahsoka Tano, CT-7567 | Rex & Ahsoka Tano
Comments: 8
Kudos: 110





	prick your finger on a spindle

**Author's Note:**

> for the prompt; Rex gets poisoned by plant on mission and Ahsoka and Anakin don't know what to do. Can be as serious or funny as you want.

It starts out slow, little, nothing to worry about as they make the trek across the planet.

Little things, tiny things that he brushes off as inconsequential and nothing to worry about.

Tiny pricks of pain he shrugs off. The way his vision grows hazier around the edges as they march on that he convinces himself is just exhaustion. He tells himself that it’s nothing, that all he needs is to get through this march and make it to a spot where they can set up base and then he can rest and he’ll be fine.

But as they go on it starts to build more, his chest goes tight and the breaths he draws are ragged. It takes far more effort than it should to keep himself from panting. But he sets it to the side, thinks that it must just be the combination of exhaustion and how far they’ve marched, how many droids they have had to fight between their drop zone and their goal as the wilderness deprives them of a good place to rest without worry.

He doesn’t notice the shaking though, not until he stumbles and Commander Tano catches him.

“Rex?” She asks, and she sounds scared, he tries to stand and reassure her, can’t manage it. His body feels leaden and his tongue numb, his mind slow and hazy.

“C’mander?” He tries to say, but it comes out more like a question.

“Master!” Someone—the Commander he thinks—cries out, and she sounds frantic now. There’s a steady buzz in his ear, he can’t tell if it’s in his head or if the Commander is doing the babbling thing she does when she’s nervous and scared.

“S’okay.” He says, thinks he manages to say it out loud, tries to reassure her.

“Captain” he hears, distant to his foggy head but the sound of a brother, even and controlled in the way only a medic can be. He thinks it’s Kix, is confused why he’s here with Rex when he’s needed elsewhere.

“They’ve got things handled sir, now I need you to open your eyes and look at me.” Rex frowns, he hadn’t realized he’d shut them. He forces them open, and it feels like it takes more of his strength than it should, the world is blurry and he breathes in deep, chokes on it, coughs.

Kix does something that Rex doesn’t catch and the last thing he remembers for a long while is the sound of multiple voices speaking over each other, the cadence of increasingly frantic speech growing louder, before he drifts off.

__________

Something pings at the back of Ahsoka’s mind around the halfway point of their march. Just the sense of something slightly out of place that she can’t put her finger on. She doesn’t have much time to figure it out either, as they march through the planet's vegetation and do their best to avoid the droids.

They are not successful in avoiding them, but they don’t lose many men to them either, so Ahsoka is willing to count that as a win. The vegetation and the fact they have yet to be able to find a good spot to rest is more dangerous than anything else right now, Ahsoka knows.

She shakes it off, ignores it in favour of focusing on getting her men to someplace they can rest. It works, until the pinging grows more insistent and then suddenly Rex is stumbling against her and the feeling thrusts itself to the forefront of her mind, the Force shouting warning at her as she steadies the Captain.

“Rex?” She asks, because Rex doesn’t _stumble_ , and the hum of the Force is insistent and the way Rex is swaying is scaring her, the fact she can hear the effort it takes for him to breathe terrifying.

“C’mander?” He asks, and she feels her heart pounding in her chest as she reaches out with the Force, tries to see what’s wrong despite the fact that it has never been her strong suit. Barriss has always been better at healing and Ahsoka wishes, not for the first time, that she had Barriss’s inclination towards it, her skill at it.

She tries to breathe through her panic, there is something wrong about Rex’s signature, something draining away at him and flowing through his body that doesn’t belong.

She steadies Rex as best as she can as he slips down and holds his head in her lap, pouring everything she has into keeping his heart beating as she frantically calls out “Master!”.

It takes too long for Master Skywalker to get there, she feels like she’s waiting ages that Rex does not have as she waits for Skyguy to make it to them. She thinks she might be shaking, knows that Rex is. Rex is trembling in her arms and panting and she scrambles to get his helmet off.

“S’okay” Rex mumbles and she grips tight onto his arm, because it really _isn’t_.

She looks up as Skyguy and starts talking as soon as she thinks he can hear her.

“I can’t get it to stop, I don’t know what it is but he was _fine_ and then he _wasn’t. I don’t know what to do_. Where’s Kix I—” She cuts herself off, breathes, tries not to cry or breakdown. Knows she’s babbling but can’t help it.

Master Skywalker’s grip is tight and grounding around her arm, “Breath Little one, Kix is right here okay?”

She breathes, tries to steady herself, as Kix takes Rex’s vitals and sets up the scanner, “Captain.” Kix says, tries to get Rex’s attention, to make Rex focus on him.

Rex frowns, breathing shallow, “K’x? What’re you doing? Arn’ you,” There’s a pause as Rex coughs, wheezes, “needed other plac’s?”

Ahsoka tries to lock down the worry as Rex’s words slur and stumble in a way he’d _never_ let them normally. Can feel the way Skyguy is bleeding his own anxiety and worry into the force and swallows, tries not to let it sweep her up into panic.

“They’ve got things handled sir, now I need you to open your eyes and look at me.” Kix says, and his voice is even and steady, his moves measured and practiced as he frowns at the scanner, moves both Ahsoka and her Master back and focuses on Rex.

It takes too long for Rex to force his eyes open and Ahsoka holds her breath until he does, loses it all as he draws a breath and starts to choke on it. She hugs her middle tightly and forces herself to stay still, to not rush forward and get in the way and make things worse. But Rex is still coughing and she doesn’t think he’s even _breathing_ and she can’t help the frantic, “Rex?” that slips out.

Skyguy is pushing forward and Ahsoka can’t hear what he’s saying over the buzzing in her ears, all she can see is the alarm in Kix’s face before he hides it, yanks open his med kit and grabs a hypo. She grabs onto Skyguy’s arm, holds him back as Kix places gentle hands to Rex’s head to keep him from moving and injects whatever is in the hypo into his neck.

Whatever it is slows the drain of Rex’s signature, slows the spread of the sickening feeling within him and keeps the warmth of his life force within him.

Ahsoka breathes, wishes again that she knew _anything_ about medicine, feels useless instead. Tries not to think about how she is falling apart in front of the men, feels a little better that she is not the only one out of her depth.

Master Skywalker is still a miasma of anxiety and fear and worry, his antsiness spreading and it makes her skin itch. She tugs on his arm and he turns to her, squeezes at her shoulder. He sends a wave of steadying comfort to her despite all the different overwhelming emotions she feels from him.

She appreciates that he tries. And it helps a little, though it is not the steadiness she wants right now, _needs_ right now.

At some point he’s called away, is needed elsewhere. She can feel his reluctance to leave but he’s still General, can’t abandon his duties to all of the men out of worry for one of them. He leaves with a final squeeze of her arm, a burst of certainty that everything will be alright.

She stands there alone, wraps her arms tight around herself and watches Kix work, feels the anxious buzz and worry of the men. A swirling storm of a feedback loop.

She breathes, brings her shields up solid around her the best she can, cocoons herself with them. She squeezes her arms once, tightly, before letting them fall to her sides, tries to send out a wave of calm, can’t quite manage it.

She walks back over to Rex and Kix slowly, careful to stay out of the way.

“What’s wrong with him?” She asks, and her voice comes out smaller than she meant it to.

Kix looks up, he hasn’t put his bucket back on yet, and his expression is gentle worry. He looks at her and she must look frantic because his expression shades gentle, reassuring.

“The Captain must have gotten nicked a while back by a plant on the planet that’s known to carry a slow acting poison,” He holds up what looks like tiny little thorns and shows them to her, “he must’ve gotten thrown into one of them during a skirmish and the thorns snapped off into the space between his armour.”

Kix puts the thorns down, checks Rex’s vitals as he keeps talking, “It’s not immediately fatal, there’s a known vaccine for it, but the longer it goes untreated the longer the vaccine takes to work and the more dangerous it is.”

Ahsoka bites her lip, feels sick. She _should’ve known_ , she doesn’t know why she didn’t catch it _before_.

Kix taps her arm gently, raps his knuckles against her head, “He’ll be okay Commander, a little weak, and a lot better the quicker we get off this planet, but I had the right stuff to take care of it and keep him stable.”

She nods, exhales and feels relief swell in her chest.

She waits there, watches the rise and fall of Rex’s chest, the slow, steady beat of his heart. Reaches out to feel the warmth of his life in the Force and feels herself steady a little.

Eventually, when she’s steady enough, she bites her lip and fidgets in place.

“I should go tell Master Skywalker,” She says, still doesn’t move.

Kix looks at her and knocks his pauldron against her arm, gives her a nod, “Go on Commander, it’ll be fine. I’ve got the watch.”

She exhales, nods jerkily and turns to go. Reminds herself that Kix won’t let his brother die if he can help it, that he’s brilliant at his job.

It does help a little bit. Makes her feel better at least.

She makes her way through the anxious buzz of the men, wants to reassure them, can’t summon the ability to without seeming like a liar. She makes her way to Skyguy instead.

She finds him helping with set up. When she starts getting close to him his head snaps up and he turns to Dream, says something. Grips his shoulder before breaking away and moving to meet her.

“Snips?”

She reaches out towards him in the Force, and he meets her halfway, wraps her in a gentle feeling that’s just the slightest bit rough and coarse. Anakin, even when he gentles his presence, always keeps some of the wildness that makes being around him unshielded hurt. It’s not his fault, there is just too _much_ of him, and it naturally swirls like a storm around him.

Gentling storms is never easy, but Ahsoka doesn’t mind it really, just sinks into the feeling of warmth surrounding her.

“Kix says that he’ll be okay.”

Skyguy lets out a breath of relief, and some of the worry bleeds out of his signature. It helps her relax.

“I felt so _useless_.” She whispers, like a confession, and Skyguy surges forward, wraps her up in his arms.

“I know.”

“I didn’t know what to do.” She says, and her voice cracks, shakes, “I didn’t know what to do or how to fix it I just knew he was dying and I—”

She cuts herself off, breathes and tries to stop shaking. Doesn’t manage it.

Master Skywalker hugs her tighter, “I know Little one, and I’m sorry. But Kix has him, he’ll be okay.”

She nods, she knows that, she just can’t help the fear still clinging to her.

She closes her eyes, examines her fear, accepts it as what it is, acknowledges it and that she doesn’t want to lose any more of her men, lets it go.

She opens her eyes and Skyguy smiles down at her, “Good Job Padawan.”

(Rex wakes later, disoriented and weak, but okay. Ahsoka breathes and it’s relief.

Next time, she promises herself, she’ll be better. Next time, she’ll know what to do.)

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to find me other places I have a [writing tumblr](https://rose-blooms-red.tumblr.com) and a [fandom tumblr](https://themessofthecentury.tumblr.com)
> 
> Please come yell at me about Star Wars and DC!


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